Nutrition Corner

15 Fruits That Help With Weight Loss: Fruits provide natural sugar, but they actually help support healthy weight management.

Why Ultra-Processed Foods Are So Addictive & How We Can Eat Less Of Them: Ultra-processed foods are as addictive as certain drugs—and it's time to call out the dangers they pose to public health.

Recipe for The Day

These Healthy Oatmeal Cookies Are a Back-To-School Essential: Enter: these healthy oatmeal cookies that are at once nourishing fuel and a delicious treat. They’re perfect for satisfying sweet cravings, and also for an on-the-go protein snack that won’t leave you crashing.

Lifestyle & Fitness Focus

4 Ways to Improve Your Posture, from a Physical Therapist

• Good posture is essential whether you are standing, sitting or lying down: It's almost impossible to treat any issue without at some point addressing the position that the person holds their body in all day. It’s really fundamental to a lot of different conditions and injuries. Any time you’re holding your body in a position that’s not optimized, you’re risking strain and injury.

• There are simple exercises you can do to correct your posture: The most common posture problem when sitting is called upper cross syndrome. In this arrangement, the head is bent in a forward position. The upper spine has a rounded shape, curving outward at the upper back and shoulders, and shoulders are hunched up toward the ears.

• For good posture, it’s vital to both strengthen and stretch your muscles: Stretching is helpful for tissues that have gotten short or tight because they’ve been held in the same position for too long. Strengthening, on the other hand, involves regularly contracting the muscles, which helps to make them stronger.

• Stretching your muscles benefits your posture in many ways: With stretching, it’s important to be able to differentiate between a little bit of pain that means you’re activating your muscles and pain that means you’re pushing them too far. You need to make sure you’re not injuring yourself while stretching.

Mood swings: 4 nutritional deficiencies that can affect your mood

• Antioxidants: Oxidative stress plays a role in anxiety and depression, leading to inflammation, which disintegrates healthy brain function and causes poor mood. Origins include an inflammatory diet, especially excess sugar and refined carbs, processed foods, toxic fats, chemicals and stress. Antioxidants are found in the colourful range of vegetables and fruits.

• Zinc: A zinc deficiency changes the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Deficiency causes include poor digestion, and deficiencies in the soil and diet. Foods high in zinc are oysters and shellfish, chicken, almonds, spinach, cacao (raw).

• Vitamin B6: It is one of the most important vitamins for mental health because it's a cofactor in the key mood neurotransmitters serotonin, GABA and dopamine. A deficiency can cause anxiety, depression, irritability, confusion, fatigue and PMS.

• Excess copper: This can create neurotransmitter imbalances, lowering dopamine and increasing norepinephrine. This can lead to postpartum depression and other mental health problems. Copper stimulates brain activity, causing a racing mind feeling and anxiety.

4 journaling techniques to support your mental health

• Bullet journaling: Instead of having separate lists of things strewn around the house or on your phone, a bullet journal allows you to keep track of all this information in one notebook. It’s effectively a planner, a to-do list, and a diary all in one. You can document anything from your weekly food shop to drawing a table to keep track of your mood throughout each month.

• Junk journal: Clutter can be a major trigger for anxiety, but it can be helpfully stored away with a notebook. Find those small bits and pieces that you’re keeping stashed around your home – such as cinema tickets, receipts, photos, labels, and other mementoes – and glue or Sellotape them into a junk journal.

• Vision book: To create your own vision book, find an A4 or A5 notebook and start writing down your dreams. Cut out pictures or headlines from newspapers or magazines and stick them into the notebook to create a collage of inspiring images for you to look at whenever you feel like you need to be grounded.

• Gratitude journal: A gratitude journal can be a great way to maintain your mental health, particularly when you’re really struggling with low mood or anxiety. To start with, find an empty notebook and write down one thing that happened during your day that you’re grateful for.

Forget weights —4 best bodyweight back exercises to sculpt and shape muscle

• Inverted Row: You’ll need a stable bar for the bodyweight row exercise. We recommend racking a barbell low to the floor with enough room to lay underneath, but you could get creative if you don’t have a barbell.

• Prone Back Extensions: The back extension activates muscles down the posterior chain — the back of the body — including your back, glutes, hamstrings and calf muscles.

• Pull-Ups: It’s the ultimate bodyweight strength exercise and takes some people a lifetime to master. Use a bar or similar. For extra help, you could wrap a resistance band around the bar and loop your foot through it. Otherwise, work with your body weight.

• Yoga Push-Ups: Despite the push-up, this variation also hits your back muscles and requires shoulder stabilization as you move. You only need an exercise mat to do it. Use your knees to practice until you feel comfortable moving on your toes.

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